megaton

English

Alternative forms

• megatonne

Etymology

metric prefix mega- +‎ ton

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɡəˌtʌn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

megaton (plural megatons)

1. A measure of the strength of an explosion or a bomb based on how many million tons of TNT would be needed to produce the same energy.
   • 1986, Kirk Thatcher, 44:05 from the start, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home‎^[1], Paramount Pictures, →OCLC:

     The sins of all our fathers, being dumped on us — the sons
     The only choice we're given is: How many megatons?
     And I eschew you!
     And I say: Screw you!
     And I hope you're blue, too.

   • 2022 September 19, Schultheiss et al., “The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth”, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, page 1, column 2:

     Integrating data from all continents and major biomes, we conservatively estimate 20 × 1015 (20 quadrillion) ants on Earth, with a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon.

2. One million tons.

Related terms

• kiloton
• megatonnage

Translations

unit of measure

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 兆噸／兆吨 (zhàodūn)

• Czech: megatuna (cs) f
• Finnish: megatonni (fi)
• French: mégatonne (fr) f
• German: Megatonne (de) f
• Italian: megaton (it) m, megatone m
• Japanese: メガトン (ja) (megaton)
• Korean: 메가톤 (megaton)
• Russian: мегато́нна (ru) f (megatónna)
• Vietnamese: triệu tấn

Anagrams

• Matengo, geomant, magneto, magneto-, metagon, montage

Italian

Etymology

From English mega- +‎ ton.

Noun

megaton m (invariable)

1. megaton

Anagrams

• magneto-